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Netflix’s ‘You People’ wasn’t funny at all to my Black and Mexican Jewish family
(JTA) — As a couple that is two parts Jew, one part Black, and all parts lovers of comedy, my husband and I sat with hopes (maybe not high ones) to watch Netflix’s “You People.”
It’s not often that we see our cultures represented together in buzzy movies, especially not ones set in Los Angeles, the city we love so much, and with the comedy king Eddie Murphy in the cast, and we were excited about the possibility of seeing ourselves reflected in the story of blended Black and Jewish families.
Unfortunately, at the expense of comedy greats including Murphy, Jonah Hill, Deon Cole, Elliot Gould and Julia Louis Dreyfus (with cameos by so many others!), the movie ended up being a painful reminder of how our family — made up of Mexican and Black Jews with Ashkenazi roots — so often must explain and justify our existence in Jewish and Black spaces.
The movie starts off with Jonah Hill’s character very comfortably recording his podcast about “the culture” (ostensibly, hip-hop culture?) with his Black, queer best friend, seeming to set the stage for the progressive coolness that will later allow him to date someone who is not “square” and potentially Black. Hill’s character loves rap music, sneaker culture and Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles, and he knows not to say the full title of that song from Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “Watch The Throne” album.
Yet we find him in scenarios that time and again have him playing into uncomfortable tropes — like saying “our boy” when referring to Malcolm X — as he quickly and nervously falls into defining Black culture at its most reductionist form. It’s no surprise then, that the film goes on to portray Blackness as a monolithic, one-dimensional stereotype.
It doesn’t get any better when we see Hill’s character in a Jewish space: High Holiday services at the Skirball Cultural Center, here serving as a synagogue. There and throughout the movie, Jews are portrayed as white and uncool — sometimes aggressively so, almost as if the writers didn’t trust the audience to know this family is Jewish if not for the mom complaining about tattoos and trying to set up her son with a highly educated daughter of a friend.
My husband and I have been to the Skirball Center on many occasions, one of them being a wedding for two supremely cool Jews of color. But you would never know from the movie that such an event could ever take place, or even that Jews of color exist in Los Angeles — even though, ironically, the actor playing Jonah Hill’s eventual love interest is Black and identifies as half-Jewish. Instead, in creating the world for “You People,” the writers continue a dated tradition of movies that overly simplify the worlds they depict based on racial binaries.
This flattened view of the world is especially lamentable because the rom-com genre has at its fingertips the easiest blueprint: All families are ridiculous and oftentimes the blending of two families even more so. Within my family alone, there are several different cultures that consistently push against each other in humorous ways. There’s “nerd culture,” “comic book culture,” “skate culture,” “food culture.” Even in my culturally blended family, where my Mexican immigrant parents regularly share meals with my Black mother-in-law, the resulting humor has never been about racial differences. In a story where the message is that we can all get along, we don’t need the punchline to be about race.
The Silversteins, from left: Joshua, Ami, Laila, Shel and Cinthya, outside of their Los Angeles home in 2021. (Casey Durkin/NBC)
“You People” could have told a story in which Jonah Hill’s character actually subverts the standard narrative, maybe one in which his character realizes how easy it is to fetishize Blackness and through experiences with his father-in-law comes to find the richness and fullness of Black culture that can even be expanded by his own Jewish background when blending his family with his fiancée’s. Or a movie in which a member of the Nation of Islam tries to openly accept a Jewish son-in-law and, rather than using Louis Farrakhan as an awkwardly divisive plot point, we see instead a Muslim Eddie Murphy try to find ways to connect with modern day hip-hop culture. Either option would allow the audience to see the layers in these characters that we are so often erased from narratives about Jewishness or Blackness.
Instead the writers opted for the easiest avenue: comedy based on persistent racial “othering.” But the differences shown are no longer based on any actual truth. They are based on beliefs we have been told to keep repeating in an effort to keep the agenda of white supremacy intact. The writers are depicting worn-out “differences” that don’t represent an authentic Jewish or authentic Black experience. Presenting any cultural experience as the “authentic” one is just another way of saying stereotypes are true — and that’s not funny at all.
Several years ago, my family participated in Ava Duvernay’s life-swap show in which we traded homes and experiences with a family of white Mormons. Our goal at the time was to show examples of coexistence and to demonstrate how contemporary identities are multilayered. But we also hoped that the experience would help us find greater acceptance as Jews of color, which still feels generally elusive. “You People” underscored for us why.
At one point during the life-swap, my husband said to me, “Listen, when you’re Black and Jewish, and everything hurts, laughter is the best medicine.” But laughter doesn’t come easily when the jokes only make sense if you don’t exist.
Sure, there were a few chuckles in my house during “You People.” The comedian Mike Epps was funny as he always is, and I laughed when Jonah Hill showed up to his date in a tie-dye sweatsuit, in a very L.A. move. But for nearly two hours, all I could think about was how “You People” feels like a movie for folks who are clinging to stereotypes because it helps them feel comfortable with their own cultural identities, which once were dominant but now must share real estate with others that are equally authentic. By confining the definition of culture to a singular idea of “race” this movie prevents an important conversation from moving forward. And that means my family, and so many other Jewish families, are once again left behind.
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The post Netflix’s ‘You People’ wasn’t funny at all to my Black and Mexican Jewish family appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Alleging conflicts, California judge boots Jewish DA from trying Stanford pro-Palestinian protesters
(JTA) — This story originally appeared in J. The Jewish News of Northern California.
Jewish groups in the Bay Area are protesting a judge’s removal of a local Jewish district attorney from a case involving pro-Palestinian protesters accused of vandalizing Stanford University’s president’s office.
The district attorney, Jeff Rosen, was disqualified from retrying a felony case against five protesters after the judge ruled that Rosen had crossed a legal line when suggesting in a campaign message that the protest was antisemitic.
“Rosen is allowed to take a strong stance against crime in the community, against antisemitism. But caution and care need to be taken when utilizing active litigation in campaign communication,” Judge Kelley Paul said from the bench.
The judge said Rosen had erred when publicly labeling the incident antisemitic when it was not charged as a hate crime.
“This case is not a hate crime,” Paul said. “The characterization of the prosecution as a fight against antisemitism runs afoul of case law.”
In an email to J. The Jewish News of Northern California, Rosen’s office wrote that while it “disagrees with the judge’s ruling, we respect it.”
In a joint statement, the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area and Jewish Silicon Valley wrote that they are “deeply troubled” by Paul’s decision and that the case “must proceed.”
“This decision uniquely targets minority prosecutors, suggesting they are incapable of pursuing justice in cases perceived to be impacting their own communities,” the statement says, adding that it “risks reinforcing longstanding antisemitic prejudices and invites future defendants to weaponize a prosecutor’s identity against them.”
The five protesters face felony vandalism and conspiracy counts stemming from a June 2024 protest in which 13 people broke into Stanford’s executive offices and caused an estimated $300,000 in damages. A jury deadlocked in February, splitting 9-3 on the vandalism count and 8-4 on conspiracy. Rosen quickly announced his plan to retry them.
The disqualification motion was filed by deputy public defender Avi Singh, who argued that Rosen had compromised his office’s neutrality by featuring the prosecution on a campaign fundraising page titled “DA Rosen Fighting Anti-Semitism,” alongside a donation button.
Singh argued that the fundraising campaign falsely implied that the defendants were antisemitic. None was charged with a hate crime.
Rosen, who has spoken publicly about his commitment to fighting antisemitism and supporting Israel, has denied any conflict of interest.
In her decision, Paul pointed to Rosen’s remarks in a March 2025 speech he gave for the San Jose Hillel, about a month before his office filed charges against the protesters. A video of the speech is linked on the “Fighting Anti-Semitism” page on his campaign website.
In the speech, Rosen equated antisemitism and “anti-Americanism,” a phrase that Deputy District Attorney Robert Baker also used to describe the conduct of the protesters during the trial’s closing arguments. Paul ruled that the similarities in the language disqualified the entire DA’s office from the case, not just Rosen.
In their own statement, the local Jewish groups suggested Rosen was being disqualified because he is Jewish.
“Generations of American Jews in positions of public trust have all too often been treated as suspect or inherently conflicted,” JCRC Bay Area and Jewish Silicon Valley said. “This decision risks reinforcing longstanding antisemitic prejudices and invites future defendants to weaponize a prosecutor’s identity against them, casting any public opposition to hate as grounds for disqualification.”
Rosen’s challenger in his June primary election, former prosecutor Daniel Chung, has turned the ruling into a campaign video. Chung called Rosen’s pursuit of the Stanford case “overzealous” and “a waste of time and money.”
“This is a humiliating loss for DA Rosen and his entire office,” Chung said in an Instagram video. “For years, millions of dollars have been spent trying to prosecute Stanford student protesters with felony charges.” Rosen’s actions, Chung said, “jeopardized the due process of the defendants” and “exemplifies the undermining of integrity, competence and compassion under DA Rosen for the last 16 years.”
The ruling hands the case to California’s attorney general, which will decide whether to retry the defendants — German Gonzalez, Maya Burke, Taylor McCann, Hunter Taylor-Black and Amy Zhai — or drop the charges.
The post Alleging conflicts, California judge boots Jewish DA from trying Stanford pro-Palestinian protesters appeared first on The Forward.
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Iran’s Deepening Water Crisis Threatens 35 Million as Economy Buckles Under US Pressure, Mounting Domestic Strain
People walk on a street near a mural featuring an image of the late Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, Iran, May 6, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
As talks with the United States over a possible deal to end the war remain uncertain, Iran’s economy is under mounting strain, with prolonged water shortages, pressure on energy infrastructure, and slowing industrial output deepening what authorities describe as an “economic war.”
With Iran entering the summer months amid a deepening water and electricity crisis, government officials estimate that around 35 million people will face water shortages, intensifying concerns over deteriorating living conditions, mounting economic strain, and daily hardship across the country.
On Monday, Issa Bozorgzadeh, a spokesman for the country’s water industry, reported that rainfall has fallen “below normal” levels across 11 provinces, warning that Tehran is among the worst affected as it enters its sixth consecutive year of drought.
Now, Iranian authorities are urging citizens to cut consumption and adopt stricter usage habits, pointing to deep structural failures in the water and power sectors as public frustration rises over supply disruptions, mismanagement, and declining living standards.
Officials have also announced planned summer power outages, warning that the deepening energy crisis could lead to factory shutdowns, reduced industrial output, rising unemployment, and higher prices.
On Sunday, Arash Najafi, head of the Energy Commission of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, noted that household, commercial, and office blackouts are likely to continue daily throughout the summer, while the industrial sector will continue to be targeted for power cuts” or “will continue to bear the brunt of power cuts.
Given the damage to several petrochemical facilities in Israeli and US strikes and their reliance on electricity from the national grid, Najafi said most available power would now be directed toward keeping these complexes operational around the clock.
“The Islamic Republic will be forced to impose electricity consumption restrictions for about 120 days, and given the lack of effective means for people to significantly reduce usage, this will result in widespread blackouts,” the Iranian official said in a statement.
Amid growing public frustration over the ongoing crisis, Majid Doustali, a member of Iran’s parliamentary planning and budget committee, called on citizens to cut back on electricity, water, and fuel consumption as part of the country’s resistance efforts in what he described as an “economic war.”
“Every effort by the public to save resources represents a direct challenge to the enemy’s economic conspiracy,” Doustali said.
Even as the crisis continues to weigh heavily on the Iranian people, a nationwide internet blackout remains in place, having exceeded 1,728 hours as of Monday, after authorities imposed the shutdown more than two months ago, effectively isolating millions of Iranians from independent reporting on the war and access to global news.
Across much of the country, unstable internet forces many people to rely on illegal black-market virtual private networks (VPNs) — tools that bypass government censorship — to stay connected beyond Iran’s borders, with access costing millions, and users risking imprisonment and national security charges.
According to a CNN estimate, Iranians have spent roughly $1.8 billion on internet access over the past two months.
Soaring costs and crumbling infrastructure have also forced businesses to cut jobs on a massive scale, leaving many workers unemployed and intensifying social and economic pressures across the country, The New York Times reported.
Dozens of major companies have reportedly laid off hundreds of employees across multiple industries, with the industrial sector alone potentially putting up to 3.5 million workers at risk, as the country’s economy reels from the impact of a US naval blockade on Iranian ports that began in mid-April.
The US blockade has prevented the regime from exporting energy through the Strait of Hormuz — a critical global energy chokepoint through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply passes.
With companies sharply reducing or freezing production amid shutdowns and mass layoffs, the private sector downturn is further threatening the regime by reducing tax revenues, which the government has come to rely on heavily amid mounting sanctions and trade restrictions.
Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has attempted to contain the fallout by urging companies to avoid layoffs “to the extent possible.”
But the regime’s internet shutdown alone has cost businesses and companies an estimated $80 million in daily losses, The New York Times reported.
As the Iranian currency continues to plunge and inflation peaks near 60 percent, senior official Gholamhossein Mohammadi said the war has already cost around one million jobs, alongside “the direct and indirect unemployment of two million people.”
Meanwhile, Iran’s energy sector is also under severe strain, with exports falling sharply, storage capacity nearing its limits, and infrastructure under growing pressure.
According to data from commodity analytics firm Kpler, Iran could exhaust its oil storage capacity within 25 to 30 days if the crisis continues, prompting cuts in output at several oil fields to ease pressure.
Amid an export collapse exceeding 70 percent, the government now faces a critical decision between shutting wells to manage storage constraints or risking long-term damage to key oil fields.
Even though Kpler’s report estimates Tehran may not feel the full revenue hit for another three to four months due to payment delays and pre-existing sales flows, the regime is expected to face a heavy blow, with losses potentially reaching $200–250 million per day.
With domestic tensions rising and the internal economic crisis worsening, Iranian officials are increasingly wary that renewed protests could erupt in the coming days, further destabilizing an already volatile situation.
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Sen. Cory Booker Reaffirms Commitment To Maintaining Israel’s ‘Qualitative Military Edge,’ Criticizes ‘Reckless War’ In Iran
April 12, 2026, New York, New York, United States: (NEW) 2026 NAN Convention. April 11, 2026, New York, New York, USA: U.S. Senator Cory Booker speaks during Day 4 of the National Action Network (NAN) 35th Anniversary Convention at Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel on April 11, 2026 in New York City. (Credit: M10s / TheNews2)(Foto: M10S/Thenews2/Zumapress) (Credit Image: © M10s/TheNEWS2 via ZUMA Press Wire)
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) defended his continued support for Israel in a recent interview while distancing himself from what he described as a “reckless war,” underscoring the increasingly delicate balancing act facing pro-Israel Democrats amid mounting political pressure from the party’s progressive wing.
In an interview with the media outlet RealClearPolitics, Booker emphasized that his opposition was not directed at Israel itself, but rather at policies he believes risk further destabilizing the Middle East and weakening long-term regional security.
“Let’s be clear, I’m opposed to a reckless war that has made the United States and Israel less safe, as well as our other Arab allies. I will not support arms from the United States or any of our allies, including Israel, in a context of a war that is endangering our national security and Israel’s. I continue to support our US military being the strongest in the world,” Booker said.
The comments come as divisions within the Democratic Party over Israel have intensified following over two years of conflict in Gaza and escalating tensions involving Iran-backed militant groups across the region. While a growing faction of Democrats has pushed for stricter conditions on military aid to Israel, Booker sought to position himself as firmly supportive of the US-Israel alliance even as he voiced concern about the conduct and trajectory of the conflict.
Booker, however, emphasized that he still supports helping Israel maintain its military advantage over its neighbors in the Middle East, a position which analysts argue helps bolster American geopolitical interests in the region.
“I continue to support Israel having a qualitative military edge, the ability to defend themselves, and offer deterrents. But in the context of this war, I will not support more military armaments to conduct what I think is a disaster that’s endangering American lives, Israeli lives, and as we see in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, our regional allies as well.”
Booker, long viewed as one of the Senate’s more traditionally pro-Israel Democrats, has historically backed military assistance to the Jewish state and has frequently spoken about the importance of Israel as America’s closest democratic ally in the Middle East. His latest remarks appeared aimed at reassuring pro-Israel voters and donors wary of the party’s leftward shift on the issue.
However, Booker raised eyebrows recently when he joined a record number of Democratic senators to vote in favor of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (D-VT) resolution against sending more arms to Israel, raising questions among some pro-Israel observers about his position on Israel.
Of the 47 Senate Democrats, 40 voted in favor of blocking sales of bulldozers and 36 voted in favor of blocking transfers of so-called “dumb” bombs.
The failed votes represent the largest show of opposition to military aid for Israel within the party in recent memory. While previous efforts spearheaded by Sanders drew support from a smaller bloc, this vote saw roughly 80 percent of Senate Democrats vote against transferring aid to the Jewish state, signaling a seismic shift in the dynamic between the Democratic Party and Israel.
Booker’s framing may reflect a broader strategy among mainstream Democrats: separating criticism of specific military operations from opposition to Israel’s existence or security needs.
Supporters of Israel argue that distinction is increasingly important as anti-Israel rhetoric grows more common in some activist circles following Hamas’ October 7 attacks and the subsequent war in Gaza. A growing number of Democratic officials and ambitious progressive candidates have accused the Jewish state of committing “genocide” in Gaza. Israeli officials have repeatedly argued that military operations are necessary to dismantle Hamas and prevent future attacks against Israeli civilians.
Booker’s comments may signal an effort to preserve bipartisan support for Israel at a time when polling shows younger Democratic voters becoming more critical of the Israeli government. At the same time, pro-Israel advocates have warned that weakening US backing could embolden Iran and its regional proxies, including Hamas and Hezbollah.
The senator did not indicate support for ending military cooperation with Israel altogether, instead emphasizing that American leadership should focus on both protecting Israeli security and preventing a wider regional war.